Buford the Buick

[thumper83]

Love that regal !I am a g-body lover also strated with an 85 ss then on to the new baby a black 86ss. Grey one is a project / drag car in slow progress lol. Keep it up beautiful car !

[flyingn]

its a sin what you did to it. Its a turbo Buick for Gods sake, build up the turbo 6.. 600 hp is easy with those motors. Why didn't you use a garden variety regal which could have been bought for a whole lot cheaper and it would not have been sacrilegious what you did. What you did is basically grab a mint low mile 1969 SS396/375 and tore into it and but a Big Block Buick in it You should be ashamed of yourself.

You did a nice job on it tho..

[olredalert]

-----Wayne,,,You have good taste in chassis guys. I used Mike P to do a bit of much needed work on "Red Alert" many years ago and he is one of the best. Looking at one of his full tilt Super Stock cars is like looking at a Mona Lisa in the drag race world!!!.......Bill S

----And Frank,,,Turbo-Schmurbo !!! Plenty of them to go around,,,A nice, healthy 540 roller motor and loose converter would give any guy on this sight the shivers in this Buick

[ QUOTE ]
-----Wayne,,,You have good taste in chassis guys. I used Mike P to do a bit of much needed work on "Red Alert" many years ago and he is one of the best. Looking at one of his full tilt Super Stock cars is like looking at a Mona Lisa in the drag race world!!!.......Bill S

Hi Bill! Mike and I have been pals for a long time. If you recall the White and Blue Firebird that Mike Saye raced (and won the NHRA world championship with), that car was originally mine (and Mikes). We were partners on it wayyyyy back when. FYI, that car was originally a low mileage, GM of Canada Player's Challenger car they used to pace race events....oh well. When the $$$ ran out, we sold it to Saye. Mike is one of the good guys in the biz. Plenty of folks don't know his influence either. More than a little of the new Dodge Challenger race package is due to MPR. And I suspect, since he is pals with Brian Wolfe, he had a wee bit of influence on the CJ Mustang as well. Right now, I'm trying to track down some pix Mike took of the housing. When I find them, I'll post them. He builds art.

Wayne Scraba

A few of the reasons I chose to build a Regal was because it (along with other G-Bodies) was the last of the mid size rear wheel drive platforms from General Motors, it has a full (albeit a wee bit flimsy) frame, it has a relatively spacious engine compartments that can swallow any Chevy engine, plus there's a ton of aftermarket support for them and they tend to be (relatively) easy to work on. Additionally, I really like the way you sit in the car when you drive them. And from an aesthetic perspective, I personally dig the looks of the T-Type over the other G-Bodies.

Bliss. Right? Maybe not. The trouble is, room is limited out back for big sticky tires. Typically, the most street tire these things can accommodate is in the range of a P275-60R15 skin. And if you run slicks, a 9.00X28.00-inch hoop is the biggest you can get away with (and that might be a stretch). Even with those two tire examples, you’re almost always forced to jack the back end up to gain clearance. The reason is, the leading and trailing edges of the frame rail (closest to the back of the door jamb and closest to the bumper) are tight to the tire. The gentle factory frame notch simply limits the amount of tire you can fit, even though there’s plenty of room in the OEM wheel well. There's another catch when you jack up the back end of a car like this: If you raise it excessively, you mess with the geometry of the back suspension. The factory 4-link instant center location is changed and typically, the car will be a handful to hook.

The solution is simple: Notch the frame. Sounds simple enough, but if it isn't done correctly, it can turn ugly, simply because the factory frame isn't the strongest piece in the world. The truth is, the frame has to be carefully notched, then reassembled (plated) with fresh material and reinforced (with a crossmember) so that it doesn't droop or bend following the surgery. Once notched though, a car like Buford can swallow tires right up to P325-50R15’s or 11.5X28.00-inch slicks, using the stock inner wheel well (tub). Best of all, this is all accomplished at stock (or close to stock) ride height which means the suspension geometry isn't screwed up. I had Lejeune Performance (Victoria, BC) notch the frame on Buford. The Lejeune shop primarily builds bad to the bone sprint cars, but they had an opening in their schedule, so that’s where Buford went for surgery.

The lowest 1/2-inch to 1.00-inch of the inner wheel well (tub) where it meets the frame is actually a sheetmetal lip. At various spots, that lip tends to flare out to meet the outside of the frame rail. Clearance is made with a big hammer, as shown here. Deter (one of the owners of Lejeune Performance, and a rather accomplished sprint car pilot) warmed the innner a bit, then whacked it several times to get it into shape. It really doesn't require a huge amount of hammer clearancing.



Here's how the frame was cut. Deter used a 4.5-inch angle grinder with a cut off disc for this part of the surgery. The frame rail was cut back to just past the factory seam.



When Deter finished the side and bottom cuts on the frame rail, he turned his attention to the top. Here, a torch was used to cut it out. Once the rough cuts were done, the notch was detailed with a grinder.



At this point, Deter fabbed a pattern, using good old fashioned cardboard as the basis. He laid it out, then tapped a hammer around the edges on the frame cut to get an exact match.



The cardboard template was cut out, laid on 0.250-inch mild steel plate and traced. Company founder, Russ Lejeune cut out the frame boxing plates. Russ sold the business but still keeps his hands busy a few days a week.



Next, Deter fit the boxing plates into each frame rail. There's a good sized gap at the front and back. That gap is pretty much the width the frame has been notched. Small filler pieces were fabricated to fit the gaps and tacked into place, and then finally, everything was welded up.



I had a set of gussets welded to the frame rail at the lower trailing arm mount. These boxed gusset plates are manufactured by HR PartsNStuff. High horsepower G-Bodies regularly rip the trailing arm right out of the car at this point (no kidding). Additionally, I added a set of bolt-in tubular braces from AutoFab race cars (you can see them in the second photo). These braces tie the lower (forward) trailing arm mount to the upper (forward) mount, which greatly enhances the strength.






There was more to the reinforcement: Part of the plan was to include a big anti-roll bar from the folks at TRZ Race Cars. This anti-roll bar kit includes a beefy tubular crossmember, complete with large end plates that weld to each of the inner frame rails. While it provides a place to mount the anti-roll bar, it also does a very good job of stiffening the frame, particularly in a critical location. One more piece that really helps stiffen these cars is a back seat brace (basically a pair of diagonal braces that stiffen the body over the rear axle). Why all of the concern about bracing? Easy. If you look at some modified G-Bodies, the windshield is often cracked and the doors don’t line up. Often they'll buckle the rear quarter panels when you add power (as you can well imagine, T-top cars are even worse).



Here's the finished frame notch on the passenger side. I wanted everything to look clean and somewhat close to stock. I think it turned out pretty well.



This is the reason for the notch on each side of the frame. It allows these big M&H Racemaster P325-50RX15 Drag Radials to fit nicely in the back wheel wells. And I didn't have to jack the car up to fit them either. In fact, the back springs are stock and I run them without the upper isolators so that the ride height isn’t ridiculous (the M&H tires are definitely huge by large – I like em!).




That's it for now. I'll post some more detailed suspension and rear end photos (including the front) a bit later. Looking at the clock and the calendar, I think it's time to wish everyone here a Merry Christmas. Best of the New Year too! Cheers!

Wayne Scraba

[flyingn]

looks good!!!!

Thank you!

Over the weekend, I'll dig up some more pix and post them.

Season's Best folks!

Wayne Scraba

Hi There GN guy. I had a big long response written, and then I did a double take on your screen name. Your suggestion that 600 horsepower is “easy” could pretty much be open for debate. If you approached that horsepower level with production six cylinder Buick hardware like a block, crank and rods (even on a hopped up, cheating dyno), I have a good hunch the connecting rods would likely be laying on the ground. And even if you did somehow manage it, I really doubt you’d be able to sustain that horsepower level without eventually driving over some engine pieces.

By the way, the dripping, leaking (did I tell you how I had to chip two inches of cooked oil crud from the transmission bellhousing to get at the bolts?) V6 went to a good home. It’s powering a real GN that, uhm, for a short period of time had one of those wicked power engines you’re talking about <g>.

As far as hacking up cars, I’m definitely guilty – I’ve chopped up a number of them. Some were even factory pilot cars with plenty of zeros in the VIN sequence. I have a hunch a couple of other guys on this board have hacked up muscle cars too. And quite a few of us old farts did it when those cars were two days old. Or less.

And finally, I have the stock 6 banger frame mounts sitting here if someone buys the car and absolutely needs it powered by one of those nearly stock 600 HP Buicks.

Take care man…

Wayne (the Buick Butcher) Scraba